Montclair Times Sideline Chatter: Time to split up Non-Public basketball powers

The Montclair Times

It's getting near that time of the high school sports calendar when the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association boys and girls basketball tournaments are about to get underway, even though with Mother Nature's snowy impact everything feels a bit disjointed schedule-wise this season with a fairly late start now planned for the 2014 tournament (Monday, March 3).

Once underway; however, it's the typical, relentless domino effect as most teams fall quietly by the wayside in quick order, and those few that are fortunate to somehow survive and advance wind up playing three games in a week with little time for recovery or preparation for the next opponent.

The big winners on the boys side - as always - are the stockpiled Non-Publics, regardless of the size of school, along with a couple of the talent-laden, usually big city public schools.

Inevitably - as has been the case for virtually every season since the NJSIAA's Tournament of Champions was initiated in 1989 - is the wind-up to it all when the latest Non-Public B elite power (a.k.a. the proverbial landing strip for vagabond basketball mercenaries), is crowned by a large supermarket chain as the state's ultimate winner.

And, with the endless array of transfers exhaustively moving from school to school in pursuit of playing with an AAU teammate and/or favorite coach - a situation that has already been well documented and discussed - the only solution may be to leave everything virtually status quo, and simply live with the situation.

After all, it seems that those folks deeply entrenched in the New Jersey high school basketball power structure - including AAU snake oil salesmen, certain overzealous coaches, and ardent fans who flock to the endless showcases to see the next future college star or possible NBA player - generally like the hoops picture the way it is now portrayed, and the NJSIAA is obviously not equipped to police the situation.

But, there might be one small addition that can be made to the group state tournament process that precedes the anti-climactic TOC when all six champs play down to one.

Heck, the NJSIAA saw the necessity of adding a Group 5 in high school football a couple of seasons back and increasing the number of playoff champions from 20 to 24, so how about tweaking the basketball tournament just a bit and bring back Non-Public C, or Parochial C as it was once called back in the day?

However, instead of being based solely on the size of the school, as was the case when Parochial C existed as a group classification from 1947-1979, it should instead be based on an easy-to-decipher evaluation of basketball emphasis at the small private or parochial school.

Non-Public C could be for programs as at The Montclair Kimberley Academy, Newark Academy, Morristown-Beard, Dwight-Englewood and a few others who are simply traditional private day schools where basketball is not generally the main focus in the student's overall make-up, which is also the case at the few mostly smaller Catholic schools that aren't as 'basketball crazed' in terms of procuring talent , such as Immaculate Conception in Montclair, Oratory Prep in Summit, Eastern Christian in North Haledon, and a handful of others that aren't closed by now due to dire financial straits.

These small privates and parochials, which do not go out of their way to bring in talent focused primarily on a certain sport onto their campuses, could then play for their own group state title, without intermingling with the schools that are stockpiled with talent and are basically glorified AAU teams playing in high school gyms in the winter instead of on the summer travel circuit.

The power structure among current Non-Public B schools in both North and South Jersey would probably welcome such a realignment so they could focus solely on banging heads for a couple of state tournament games amongst themselves without being distracted by the need to dispatch with the small Non-Publics out of the power spectrum which result in the typically lopsided 75-25 final scores for the umpteenth time.

There are larger Non-Publics that also do not overemphasize basketball and are occasionally mixed together with a couple of 'factory-like' mega-hoops programs, but the Non-Public A schools don't have quite the historical context that the powerful 'B' schools have exemplified in the past quarter century.

Non-Public B schools have won 19 of the first 25 TOC titles - including the last eight in a row - and the only four public schools to win the overall New Jersey boys hoops championship have been Elizabeth in 1990, Shawnee in 1992, Orange in 1994 and Camden in 2000.

Very little is likely to change in terms of how the TOC plays out for the present and the future; but giving some tiny Non-Publics a chance to legitimately compete for a small-school group state championship would be a nice addition to a basketball state tournament that is crying out for a new wrinkle in the land of the 'halves' and 'have-nots.'

Montclair Times Sideline Chatter: Time to split up Non-Public basketball powers

The Montclair Times

It's getting near that time of the high school sports calendar when the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association boys and girls basketball tournaments are about to get underway, even though with Mother Nature's snowy impact everything feels a bit disjointed schedule-wise this season with a fairly late start now planned for the 2014 tournament (Monday, March 3).

Once underway; however, it's the typical, relentless domino effect as most teams fall quietly by the wayside in quick order, and those few that are fortunate to somehow survive and advance wind up playing three games in a week with little time for recovery or preparation for the next opponent.

The big winners on the boys side - as always - are the stockpiled Non-Publics, regardless of the size of school, along with a couple of the talent-laden, usually big city public schools.

Inevitably - as has been the case for virtually every season since the NJSIAA's Tournament of Champions was initiated in 1989 - is the wind-up to it all when the latest Non-Public B elite power (a.k.a. the proverbial landing strip for vagabond basketball mercenaries), is crowned by a large supermarket chain as the state's ultimate winner.

And, with the endless array of transfers exhaustively moving from school to school in pursuit of playing with an AAU teammate and/or favorite coach - a situation that has already been well documented and discussed - the only solution may be to leave everything virtually status quo, and simply live with the situation.

After all, it seems that those folks deeply entrenched in the New Jersey high school basketball power structure - including AAU snake oil salesmen, certain overzealous coaches, and ardent fans who flock to the endless showcases to see the next future college star or possible NBA player - generally like the hoops picture the way it is now portrayed, and the NJSIAA is obviously not equipped to police the situation.

But, there might be one small addition that can be made to the group state tournament process that precedes the anti-climactic TOC when all six champs play down to one.

Heck, the NJSIAA saw the necessity of adding a Group 5 in high school football a couple of seasons back and increasing the number of playoff champions from 20 to 24, so how about tweaking the basketball tournament just a bit and bring back Non-Public C, or Parochial C as it was once called back in the day?

However, instead of being based solely on the size of the school, as was the case when Parochial C existed as a group classification from 1947-1979, it should instead be based on an easy-to-decipher evaluation of basketball emphasis at the small private or parochial school.

Non-Public C could be for programs as at The Montclair Kimberley Academy, Newark Academy, Morristown-Beard, Dwight-Englewood and a few others who are simply traditional private day schools where basketball is not generally the main focus in the student's overall make-up, which is also the case at the few mostly smaller Catholic schools that aren't as 'basketball crazed' in terms of procuring talent , such as Immaculate Conception in Montclair, Oratory Prep in Summit, Eastern Christian in North Haledon, and a handful of others that aren't closed by now due to dire financial straits.

These small privates and parochials, which do not go out of their way to bring in talent focused primarily on a certain sport onto their campuses, could then play for their own group state title, without intermingling with the schools that are stockpiled with talent and are basically glorified AAU teams playing in high school gyms in the winter instead of on the summer travel circuit.

The power structure among current Non-Public B schools in both North and South Jersey would probably welcome such a realignment so they could focus solely on banging heads for a couple of state tournament games amongst themselves without being distracted by the need to dispatch with the small Non-Publics out of the power spectrum which result in the typically lopsided 75-25 final scores for the umpteenth time.

There are larger Non-Publics that also do not overemphasize basketball and are occasionally mixed together with a couple of 'factory-like' mega-hoops programs, but the Non-Public A schools don't have quite the historical context that the powerful 'B' schools have exemplified in the past quarter century.

Non-Public B schools have won 19 of the first 25 TOC titles - including the last eight in a row - and the only four public schools to win the overall New Jersey boys hoops championship have been Elizabeth in 1990, Shawnee in 1992, Orange in 1994 and Camden in 2000.

Very little is likely to change in terms of how the TOC plays out for the present and the future; but giving some tiny Non-Publics a chance to legitimately compete for a small-school group state championship would be a nice addition to a basketball state tournament that is crying out for a new wrinkle in the land of the 'halves' and 'have-nots.'